Ostwald ripening of binary alloy particles

Van der Waals Integrated Hybrid POM-Zirconia Flexible Belt-Like Superstructures

A facile one-step solvothermal approach to engineer a van der Waals integrated heteromaterial self-assembled superstructure composed of two structurally distinct species that is polyoxomolybdate and zirconia (POM-ZrO₂ ) is reported. Nonclassical aggregation-based self-assembly process grows the superstructure. The introduced POM not only behaves as a catalytically active component of the hybrid structure but also imparts flexibility to the developed POM-ZrO₂ superstructures. The material shows high performance toward oxygenation of thioethers as a result of its morphology, composition, and structure. This growing strategy may introduce a viable pathway to the rational design of Van der Waals integrated complex hybrid, catalytically active assemblies with potential applications in different fields.

Trapping shape-controlled nanoparticle nucleation and growth stages via continuous-flow chemistry

Continuous flow chemistry is used to trap the nucleation and growth stages of platinum-nickel nano-octahedra with second time resolution and high throughputs to probe their properties ex situ. The growth starts from poorly crystalline particles (nucleation) at 5 seconds, to crystalline 1.5 nm particles bounded by the {111}-facets at 7.5 seconds, followed by truncation and further growth to octahedral nanoparticles at 20 seconds.

Ostwald-Driven Phase Separation in Bimetallic Nanoparticle Assemblies

The compositional stability of bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) is crucial for many applications. We have studied the coarsening of amorphous carbon-supported Au-Pd NPs during annealing at 873 K. Using scanning transmission electron microscopy and energy-dispersive spectroscopy measurements, we show that, despite a complete miscibility of the two metals, the particle assembly undergoes a phase separation during annealing, which leads to two distinct populations: Au-rich NPs with a mean radius of 3.5 nm and large Pd-rich NPs with a mean radius of 25 nm. Thermodynamic calculations and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations explain this behavior that is driven by the competition between surface and mixing energy and by the different mobilities of the two atomic species.

Structural and magnetic evolution of bimetallic MnAu clusters driven by asymmetric atomic migration

The nanoscale structural, compositional, and magnetic properties are examined for annealed MnAu nanoclusters. The MnAu clusters order into the L1(0) structure, and monotonic size-dependences develop for the composition and lattice parameters, which are well reproduced by our density functional theory calculations. Simultaneously, Mn diffusion forms 5 Å nanoshells on larger clusters inducing significant magnetization in an otherwise antiferromagnetic system. The differing atomic mobilities yield new cluster nanostructures that can be employed generally to create novel physical properties.

Automated synthesis of photovoltaic-quality colloidal quantum dots using separate nucleation and growth stages

As colloidal quantum dot (CQD) optoelectronic devices continue to improve, interest grows in the scaled-up and automated synthesis of high-quality materials. Unfortunately, all reports of record-performance CQD photovoltaics have been based on small-scale batch syntheses. Here we report a strategy for flow reactor synthesis of PbS CQDs and prove that it leads to solar cells having performance similar to that of comparable batch-synthesized nanoparticles. Specifically, we find that, only when using a dual-temperature-stage flow reactor synthesis reported herein, are the CQDs of sufficient quality to achieve high performance. We use a kinetic model to explain and optimize the nucleation and growth processes in the reactor. Compared to conventional single-stage flow-synthesized CQDs, we achieve superior quality nanocrystals via the optimized dual-stage reactor, with high photoluminescence quantum yield (50%) and narrow full width-half-maximum. The dual-stage flow reactor approach, with its versatility and rapid screening of multiple parameters, combined with its efficient materials utilization, offers an attractive path to automated synthesis of CQDs for photovoltaics and, more broadly, active optoelectronics.

The role of the dynamic crossover temperature and the arrest in glass-forming fluids

We discuss the role of the dynamic glass-forming fragile-to-strong crossover (FSC) in supercooled liquids. In the FSC, significant dynamic changes such as the decoupling (the violation of the Stokes-Einstein relation) of homologous transport parameters, e.g., the density relaxation time τ and the viscosity η, occur at a characteristic temperature T(c). We study the FSC using a scaling law approach. In particular, we use both forms of the mode-coupling theory (MCT): the original (ideal) and the extended form, which explicitly describes energy hopping processes. We demonstrate that T(c) plays the most important physical role in understanding dynamic arrest processes.